In order to maximize trauma to game animals, and thereby kill them more quickly and humanely, bowhunters often hunt game animals with broadhead-type arrowheads, that is, arrowheads which bear one or more blades extending laterally outwardly from the arrowhead and its trailing arrow shaft. This is in contrast to arrowheads used for recreational archery, which generally have a simple conical/pointed shape with no laterally-extending protrusions. The objective of a broadhead is to increase the effective area of the arrowhead which strikes the target animal, thereby enhancing the size of the inflicted wound and the lethality of the arrow.
Over time, blades may grow dull or bend. Sharpening and/or unbending a blade is not recommended, since irregularities in the weight and/or shape of blades may cause an arrow to veer from its intended path. Replacement of blades is therefore the preferred remedy, though not all broadheads allow removal and replacement of blades, and those that do allow blade replacement tend to suffer from several drawbacks. The blades must be strongly held in the broadhead to avoid falling off when a target is struck, but at the same time they must be easily removed—and these goals often compete with each other. It is undesirable to require tools or great force to remove a blade from a broadhead, since it is inconvenient to require use of tools (particularly when replacing blades in the field, where a bowhunter may not have tools at hand), and the chances of cutting oneself when changing blades is much higher if one must “struggle” with a blade to remove it. Often, blades are easily removable from a broadhead once the broadhead is removed from an arrow shaft, but broadheads of this type tend to suffer from the problem that the blades are too loosely held by the broadhead—or are not held at all—upon removal of the shaft. As a result, blades can readily fall out of a broadhead upon its removal from (or attempted installation on) a shaft, and the blades are then difficult to find, particularly in the field where fallen blades may be hidden by grass or other ground features. Many broadheads with removable blades also require disassembly into multiple small parts to remove and replace blades, which can also be problematic owing to the ease with which parts can be dropped and lost (again, particularly in the field).